TL;DR Pick route planning software built for repeat sales beats. In the Philippines it has to balance dense sari-sari areas, plan around traffic and island travel, and work offline on provincial routes. If you only route delivery trucks, a dispatch tool suits you better.
Route planning software for a sales team builds the beat plan. It sets the stores each rep, promodiser or van seller covers, how often each store gets a visit, and the order of stops each day. Route optimization software is the engine behind that plan. It splits stores between reps and puts each day's stops in the best order. Every rep gets a fair day and no store falls off the cycle.
Route planning software for sales vs delivery
Delivery routing plans a fleet's trips to new addresses every day and looks for the fastest multi-stop trip. A sales team goes back to the same sari-sari stores, drugstores and supermarkets on a weekly or monthly cycle. The hard part is splitting stores fairly between reps and giving each store the right number of visits.
| Kind of tool | What it plans | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Map and route planner apps | One person's stops for today, in order | A single rep with no fixed beat |
| Delivery and fleet routing | Vehicles, loads, time windows and delivery routes | Couriers, parcel firms and dispatch teams |
| Sales route optimization | Beats, visit frequency and territories for a whole field team | Brands selling through distributors to many outlets |
BeatRoute is the third kind, built for field teams that sell through distributors.
How BeatRoute's route optimization software builds a beat plan
Planners at HQ build the beat plan in BeatRoute's route optimization software, in four steps:
- Map and group outlets. Each store gets GPS coordinates and a value class. Top stores get a weekly visit, small ones a visit every two weeks or once a month.
- Set the limits. Planners add store hours, visit length, rep days off, a cap such as 12 visits a day and the longest distance per route. They also choose whether sleep-outs are allowed: nights a rep stays away on an out-of-town route.
- Cut balanced territories. Outlets are split between reps by location, density and sales value.
- Build and send the plan. The software turns this into a beat plan for the cycle and optimized routes for each day. The field sales app shows each rep the day's stores.
Once the plan is live, the Scheduling AI Agent picks which outlets each rep should visit first that day. With the Scheduling AI Agent, productive visits have risen from 45% to 78%.
What to judge for Philippine routes
Routes here mix dense stores in Metro Manila, long trips in the provinces and patchy signal. Check these points in a demo.
| What to judge | Why it matters in the Philippines | What to ask to see |
|---|---|---|
| Balance in dense areas | A Metro Manila beat can hold dozens of sari-sari stores a few streets apart, so beats must balance by store count and value as well as distance | Two beats side by side with their store count and visit load |
| Island and provincial travel | Routes in the Visayas and Mindanao can take a full day, and some need a night away | Sleep-out and working-day rules built into the plan |
| Traffic and store hours | A late stop in traffic can mean a closed store | Stops ordered for the least time in traffic, with timed visits kept in their slot |
| Offline use | Reps lose signal between towns and on some islands | The rep app recording a visit and an order offline, then syncing |
| Planned vs actual | Managers need to see which planned visits really happened | Coverage by territory and outlet class, and missed stores moved to another day |
BeatRoute plans van sales and distributor routes alongside field rep beats. It also syncs the outlet list from your ERP or DMS, so new and closed stores reach the plan.
Test it on one territory first
There is no free trial, so a good test of route planning software is a pilot in one territory or one distributor's area. Check first that its stores are geotagged and grouped by value. Keep your current beat plan as the baseline and run the new one for two or three beat cycles. Then compare stores covered, visits per rep per day and time on the road. After that, roll out across Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. Book a demo to see how BeatRoute plans beats for a territory like yours.
Brands that plan routes on BeatRoute
Philip Morris International chose BeatRoute's Route Optimization in the Philippines for territory cutting and field sales routes. San Miguel, Monde Nissin and Unilab also run on BeatRoute here. In all, 200+ enterprise brands across 20+ countries use the platform.
Perfetti Van Melle Indonesia tripled outlet coverage with BeatRoute route optimization and SFA. Read the Perfetti Van Melle Indonesia case study.
Perfetti Van Melle India raised outlet reach by 15% and cut delivery cost by 10% with route optimization. Read the Perfetti Van Melle India case study.
Frequently asked questions
How do route planning and route optimization work together?
Route planning decides which stores a rep covers and how often. Route optimization software works out the best split of those stores between reps and the best order to visit them each day. In field sales the two run together. The plan sets the cycle: weekly visits for top sari-sari stores and supermarkets, monthly visits for small ones. Route optimization then checks store hours, visit length, traffic and the limit on visits per day, and builds a route each rep can finish. BeatRoute's Route Optimization module does both for reps, promodisers and van sellers, so the plan is fair to every rep and every store gets its visits.
Can a free map app plan routes for a sales team?
A free map app can put one rep's stops for today in order. It does not know outlet value, visit frequency or store hours, and it cannot split stores between reps. For sales route mapping across a whole team, you need sales route planning software that plans beats and territories and puts each day's route in the rep's app.
What is the difference between route optimization and territory optimization?
Territory optimization software sets the geographic boundaries of each territory plan. It decides which area and which outlets belong to each rep or distributor. The aim is sales territories balanced by store count, sales value, workload and travel time. Route optimization works inside those boundaries. It builds the beat plan and the order of visits each day. If one territory in Quezon City holds twice the stores of the next, no route can fix it. A well-drawn territory still wastes time if the stops run out of order. BeatRoute does territory planning and route planning in one place: planners cut and align territories by location, outlet density and value, then build beats and routes inside them. New stores join the nearest beat with room, and a full territory shows how many reps it needs. For more on drawing territories, read our guide to territory mapping in the Philippines.
How is Route Optimization different from the Scheduling AI Agent in BeatRoute?
Route Optimization is the HQ tool that builds territories and beat plans for the whole cycle. The Scheduling AI Agent works in the field each day. It tells the rep which outlets to visit first, based on sales trends and overdue payments.